An ICE officer shot and seriously wounded a Venezuelan man Sunday afternoon in Austin, local officials have confirmed.
The man was taken to a local hospital and is “in serious but stable condition” after being shot in the torso, Austin-Travis County EMS Chief Robert Luckritz said.
Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson Sheridan Nolen said the agency received a request for assistance from ICE for a vehicle pursuit involving a blue Toyota Corolla.
“Once they arrived, DPS Troopers immediately began assisting partner law enforcement agencies in performing medical treatment on the driver of the Toyota Corolla,” she said in a statement.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said the Austin Police Department was not involved in the incident.
“A person being shot on the streets of Austin by someone purporting to be law enforcement, particularly when it’s ICE, is something that causes me to be unhappy and angry,” Watson said at the news conference. “While I’m unhappy and I’m angry about it, I’m not surprised at all.”
U.S. Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) demanded “accountability for any ICE officer who broke the law.”
“Over and over, ICE has shot people and then lied about what happened. We can see the lies with our own eyes. We will demand truth, transparency and accountability,” he said in a post on X.
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, demanded “full accountability.”
“Trump has allowed ICE to flood our streets and put our communities in harms way again and again,” he said in a post on X.
James Talarico, who is running as the Democratic candidate for one of Texas’ U.S. Senate seats, said he is “closely following” reports of the shooting.
The shooting comes two months after an ICE officer fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national, in Houston during an attempted traffic stop to conduct an immigration arrest.
